“... relies on a pattern of fortuitous conjunctions to get the most out of her ebullient material. Caroline Lassalle’s novel Breaking the rules (her first) is based on a device: the supposition that one’s past selves are other people, or as good as. The six women in the book – Celia, Charlotte, Eleanor, Laura, Ida and Andrea – boil down to one, at ...”

Richard Wollheim: Childhood, 15 April 2004

“... facts about my father’s childhood. One was that his family doctor was the doctor of Friedrich Lassalle, the famous socialist and enemy of Marx. The other was that, when he had to walk to school in the bitter cold, he prepared himself by swallowing a mouthful of goose fat, and wrapping a sheet of brown paper across his chest under his shirt. I possess a ...”